BT, a leading telecom operator in Britain, will remove China-based Huawei Technologies’ equipment from its core 4G network within two years, Financial Times reported.
The move by BT will bring its mobile phone business in line with an internal policy to keep the Chinese company’s equipment at the edge of telecoms infrastructure.
BT has also excluded Huawei, the # telecom network maker, from bidding for contracts to supply equipment for use in its core 5G network.
In 2016, following the acquisition of EE, BT began a process to remove Huawei equipment from the core of our 3G and 4G networks, as part of network architecture principles in place since 2006.
“We’re applying these same principles to our current RFP for 5G core infrastructure. As a result, Huawei have not been included in vendor selection for our 5G core. Huawei remains an important equipment provider outside the core network, and a valued innovation partner,” BT said in a statement.
Recently, Neil McRae, chief architect at British Telecom, said at a telecom event: “Huawei is the only true 5G supplier right now. I’ve been to Shenzhen recently and there’s nowhere else in the world where you can see the kind of 5G technology developments that Huawei has achieved.”
Huawei also made a public statement saying it has already won 22 commercial contracts to supply 5G equipment to telecom operators.
BT has made an investment of £1.833 billion (+8 percent) towards Capex (capital expenditure) during April-September 2018.
BT Group’s capital expenditure was £1.833 billion in H1 fiscal 2018-19 vs £1.693 billion in H1 2017-18 including network investment of £988 million. BT’s spending was £443 million on customer driven investments, £327 million on systems and IT, and £75 million on non-network infrastructure.
BT earlier said EE demonstrated 5G capability from a live site in Canary Wharf. EE will be converting mobile spectrum from 3G to 4G. The maximum capacity 4G sites in the UK’s busiest hotspots lay the foundation for 5G network switch on in 2019, EE said.
BT will continue to use Huawei’s kit in what it considers to be benign parts of the network, such as equipment on masts, FT said.
Wall Street Journal in November reported that the U.S. government will be asking wireless and internet providers in friendly countries to avoid telecommunications equipment from Huawei.
Later, New Zealand rejected Huawei’s first 5G bid citing national security risk. Earlier this year, Australia too banned Huawei from supplying 5G equipment, also citing security risks.
It is believed that US operators will not be buying 5G equipment from Huawei. Recently, T-Mobile selected both Ericsson and Nokia in two 5G equipment deals worth $3.5 billion each.
Baburajan K
